Going Back
by SJlikeslists
Summary: Heather knew almost immediately that something was wrong with her trip to New Bern.


Disclaimer: _Jericho_ is not mine.

The fewer the miles standing between Heather and the place which she used to call home, the more uncomfortable she became. She couldn't quite put her finger on what it was, but there was a niggling feeling at the back of her neck that kept telling her that something was wrong. She was used to listening to those sorts of feelings, but she was also used to trusting Ted. If he thought that it was important to find some way to make use of the brake assembly plant, then it was important. If the way Russell had looked (a pinched expression that was somewhere between desperate and longing that had disappeared before she could even be certain that she had really seen it) when he had questioned her about how much of the piece of tech that they were missing she actually remembered was any indication, then it was more important than even Ted seemed to realize.

She wasn't sure whether that was what was putting her on edge or not. She knew New Bern and its surroundings well - trying to make an unprepared for jump back in time to a predominately agrarian society that was capable of sustaining its population would be a nightmare in logistics. They would need trade goods to keep them going, and she didn't want to consider the possibility that that still might not be enough.

She shouldn't have just jumped into this. She should have packed and gotten her notes and . . . and she hadn't because she had wanted out of the malaise into which she had found herself drifting and hadn't wanted the chance of being talked into not going. There was a good chance that a lot more people in Jericho were going to lose the battle against the cold. There was, she could see, a good chance that a lot of people in New Bern were going to be going hungry. She was sitting in the position of being able to do something that might help mitigate both of those things in one fell swoop.

She wasn't sorry she was going; she was just a little miffed at herself that she was going so unprepared. She tried not to think too hard about the attitude at the checkpoint before they hit the outskirts of town. She tried to ignore the phrasing that was thrown at her and the way the father of a kid she used to tutor through his math homework had reached over and ever so slightly shifted the attention of one of the other men - the one she wasn't sure whether or not she was supposed to have noticed was aiming at her during the whole conversation.

They said their goodbyes to Russell and Mike (the latter spending the drive, confrontation, and parting behaving as if neither one of them was aware that he had been dating one of her best friends for the better part of two years), and Ted hustled them down a street that she knew ended in the trailer park where he lived at a pace that did nothing to calm her nerves.

There was no way he could have seen the expression on her face (it was too dark and the dim light from Ted's flashlight was directed solely at the sidewalk in front of them), but he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking anyway (as evidenced by the way that he answered the question that she had not asked).

"You can't go to Jenna's," he told her in a voice so low that she barely caught the words. Under normal circumstances, she would have assumed that he was keeping quiet in deference to the probability of people sleeping in the houses they were passing. This, however, felt nothing like normal circumstances. There was an eerie quality to the whole situation that made it feel like Ted was afraid to be overheard. His steps quickened (doing nothing to lessen her feelings of unease), and his hand settled on her back feeling like it was conveying a warning that her questions needed to wait.

Heather has never been uncomfortable around Ted Lewis in her life, but she doesn't have any other word for what she is feeling about the vibe he is giving off when he ushers her into the trailer.

"I'll take you to see Jenna," he assures her as the door closes behind them, "but we have to be careful about it. She's got enough trouble already."

She tries to interject at that point, but he hushes her and tells her to wait until in the morning. He looks skittish and sort of paranoid, and she doesn't know what to think of it other than that something is very, very wrong. It is making her all kinds of crazy to not know what that something is. She doesn't like being blindsided, but Ted looks as if he is truly scared that someone is going to come bursting in in the middle of his explanation. In light of that, she lets it go for the moment.

She doesn't sleep. She doesn't think she would have slept even if she did know what was wrong. She doesn't think she would have slept even if there was nothing wrong in the first place. She is too busy (in between the other thoughts and confusion) being angry at herself for the lack of preparation that went into this little foray into "taking a page" out of the Jake Green confronted with a situation that may turn out to be ill-advised life handbook.

She doesn't even have a hairbrush. The thought makes her strangely melancholy. It wasn't one of the things that she had thrown into the bag she had brought with her that morning. She did have a toothbrush tucked in there because that was what had fallen under her hand when she did the random things that I might need walk about of her house that morning.

She takes stock in her head (not wanting to get up and rummage and disturb Ted whom she could clearly hear was snoring in the other room). She has a toothbrush but no toothpaste to go with it. There is a rolled up t-shirt in the bottom of her bag and an extra pair of socks that she always tucks in these days out of habit because field trips and children and puddles (and even recess and children and puddles) are totally a thing with which she has dealt enough times to never leave herself flat footed again.

Nothing about her mood improves as she is making a mental checklist of all of the things that are not in that bag (particularly when her mental checklist morphs into a calendar and she realizes that she will be due to start her period in about a week and a half). She wishes that she had gotten at least that one perk from the less calories, more activity shift in her lifestyle, but that part of her life seems to be trucking on without change even in the face of the chaos all around her.

She's been friends with Ted for a long time, and as the only guy hanging out through their childhood with a group of girls, he has gotten his fair share of comments that turned the tips of his ears red made in his presence. That is still not a conversation that she is looking forward to having with him.

Her checklist is making her feel nothing but stupid and careless. She just hopes that morning will bring better things - like something she can do that will make her feel as if (if nothing else) this trip was useful. She hangs on to that and eventually drifts off into a light doze that dissipates the instant the first hint of daylight starts to play outside of the window. She hears Ted start stirring a few moments later and decides it is safe to get up and face whatever it is that is coming.

She is back in New Bern, but she really has no idea where she is.


End file.
